


What They Did

by AreYouReady



Category: Death Note, Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Horror, Infidelity, Nonbinary Character, Other, Tragedy, Trans Character, trigger warning: suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 03:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5113853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreYouReady/pseuds/AreYouReady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi observes, L reflects, and B fancies themselves the protagonist of some nineteenth century novel or other.</p><p>(set in a verse where wammy's doesn't exist, and nor do shinigami and death notes. everyone is normal here, for a given value of normal.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What They Did

**Author's Note:**

> Obligatory Note: yes, L is trans, and B and Misa (who is mentioned in passing) are nonbinary. You can fight my entire ass.

Naomi was zoned out in the living room, sprawled on the couch and not really looking at the quietly chattering television when the door slammed open, and B swept in, walking so purposefully that their long black coat fluttered behind them. They were pounding up the stairs, their heavy boots tracking dirt all the way through the house, before she could even say hello.

“I just got back from the cemetery,” they called down in explanation, before she heard the door to their room slam behind them.

Misora stared at the mess her housemate had left all over the floor, not having the energy to either clean it up herself, or call them back to do it. Eventually, she turned her attention back to the television.

-

L began unbuttoning his shirt, impatient to strip out of his uncomfortable office clothes. He breathed a sigh of relief as the feel of soft cotton replaced the abrasive stiffness of his work button down. Out of habit, he stuck a hand up his shirt after it was fully on, to finger the myriad of scars on his chest. As he traced a long one that led up his sternum and almost to his collarbone, his phone rang, and he grabbed it, expecting it to be Mary, his booty-call-in-the-process-of-becoming-more, wanting to meet up for coffee and sex, most likely at her apartment.

Instead, the phone showed a picture of a face he hadn’t seen in five years, and the caller was someone he hadn’t contacted in just as long.

L picked up.

-

The mud was dried onto the carpet, and B still hadn’t left their room. Naomi had gone to work twice since then, and it had been a weekend when B had come back, all in a rush. Three or four days, then, B had been entombed. And they weren’t just slipping out while Naomi was out, either: she intermittently heard the sounds of them pacing at all hours of the day and night.

They hadn’t even left their room to eat. It wouldn’t surprise Naomi if they hadn’t eaten, they had occasionally asked her to remind them to eat after a period of forgetting. They would have to have drank water, and used the toilet, but Naomi speculated that they probably had a stash of water bottles in their room, and if push came to shove, they could probably piss out the window. Still, she was worried all the same.

-

L’s hands shook as he made his coffee the next morning. It was partly the regular caffeine withdrawal that tended to hit him at seven am, but also a hoard of memories that tied his innards in knots.

As he sipped his coffee, bitter and black, not the way he _used_ to drink it, his hand, almost without permission, shot into the kitchen cabinet, and ducked into the small hidden cavity with a dexterity born from practice that he wished it didn’t possess. It was a habit he’d been trying (and failing) to kick for years, but he hadn’t indulged this early in the morning for nearly eighteen months. Still, today was special, he mused as he thrust his fingers into the battered red carton to withdraw a slim, white cancer stick: today was a day to handle the past that had so rudely waltzed back into his life with one single phone call. He took a _very_ long drag on his cigarette. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was convinced it would suffocate him.

-

Naomi was almost at the point of bodily dragging B from their study when they emerged on their own, smelling of unwashed human and a bit wild eyed, but very much alive. She was actually outside their door when they finally opened it. Though what should have caught her attention was B themselves, with their greasy, tangled hair and their manic grin and the shocking dark red of their usually-makeup-covered scars, what actually drew her eye was the glimpse she caught of their study before the door shut. All she saw was their desk, but that was enough to raise some questions. Aside from the usual knickknacks that always adorned it, like the (completely real) wired together cat’s skeleton, or the (probably fake) preserved human brain, or the (definitely decorative) quill pen ad inkwell, it was piled high with what looked like every medical textbook in their extensive collection. For whatever reason, they had kept themselves busy while shut off from the world in their study.

-

L’s hands were still shaking, just a bit, as his faithful GPS guided him to the address he only half wanted to find. He drove through the streets in a daze, clutching the steering wheel to steady himself. But something prompted him to take a slight detour, against the polite, feminine protests of his global positioning system. He parked just outside the cemetery gates, and did not enter, only looked inside, seeking out a particular grave. There were fresh flowers on it, of course, no more than five days old. There always were. He had no reason to suspect otherwise. But after all these years, he would have thought…

But no, they weren’t the type to forget.

-

B had only been back to their regular schedule a day when a mysterious, dark haired guest appeared on their doorstep. B introduced him only as _an old friend_ , and hurriedly ushered him upstairs to their bedroom, stopping just to grab a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from the kitchen.

Naomi had never known much about B’s past. She knew all about their present, from the fact that they had a petty rivalry with one of the other pathologists in Wammy County Morgue to the fact that there was only one café in the area whose coffee they would drink. She knew that when drunk, they started out philosophical, then turned reckless, and finally got uncomfortably clingy and emotional, and that they weren’t legally allowed to drive. But as soon as she asked them about anything that had happened more than about four years ago, they would clam up like a murder suspect. The only hint she had was a picture of them, looking about ten years younger, smiling with an only-slightly-taller, dark haired boy looking unimpressed on their left, and a small, sharp featured blonde girl smiling along with them on their right, her arm extending to the edge of the frame in a way that indicated she was taking the picture.

She wondered if their curt treatment of this “old friend” had anything to do with whatever secret B was trying to keep.

-

Neither of them had spoken much since B had chivvied L into their bedroom. B had just poured them each two fingers of Knob Creek, and they’d stared at each other, unsure of how to break five years of silence. At last, B moved from the armchair across from L where they had been sitting to the bed next to him.

“So…” L began, feeling as though he was sticking his finger into piranha infested waters, but also as though it wasn’t really his _favorite_ finger, and the piranhas needed to eat _something_.

“So.” L couldn’t see their face, but their voice was totally empty.

“What prompted this?” L cringed at the nonchalance of his own voice.

“I have something to show you.” B answered, their voice no longer empty, but still unreadable.

“Then show me,” L told them.

“I can’t yet. Not until it’s time,” they replied.

-

Naomi stared out the window, and the neighbors’ elaborate Halloween displays. She and B could never seem to manage something like that. They were always too wrapped up in work, and she was always simply too tired. Besides, she didn’t particularly like Halloween much. She couldn’t help but feel that at thirty two, she’d outgrown the holiday. For people her age, monsters no longer existed. Oh, sure, people used monsters as metaphors for challenge and conflict and the like, but one couldn’t make a decoration out of fear of growing older, or unresolved conflicts, or hurtful memories. The monsters were supposed to distract from those things, she supposed, but she just found them unnerving.

-

“I have a girlfriend, you know,” L told B as they kissed the back of his neck.

“I know,” they replied.

“I still love you, though,” L told them.

“I know,” they replied again.

He offered Mary a silent apology as his hands went for B’s fly, almost as autonomously as they’d gone for the cigarettes this morning. Though as B’s body was slowly laid naked before him, that familiarity was broken up. The burns gave a new texture to sickly pale skin, and five years of personal neglect had left far more ribs showing than before.

Still, L reflected wryly, as he plunged a hand into B’s boxers, things were the same where it counted.

-

Naomi rubbed her ring finger, an old habit from years ago, when it used to carry an engagement ring. She would be eternally grateful to B for letting her set up this housemate arrangement on such short notice, when Raye had kicked her out of the apartment they’d shared. Still, they could sometimes be a pretty bad housemate, she mused, as she cleaned mud from the floor, and sexual sounds resonated from upstairs.

-

“I still love you, you know,” B told him as he spooned them. Their bodies still fit perfectly together, the one inch height difference, plus B’s narrower frame, allowed L to curl around them with ease.

“I know,” L replied. He had expect their sex to be angry and rough, a release of tension, but it hadn’t been. B had set the tone, and that tone had been _nostalgic_. Together, they’d recreated their memories. B’s tenderness, the rhythms, the eye-contact, it had all been the same. Even the feel of a flesh and blood cock, as opposed to a strap-on, brought back memories, since almost everyone L had dated since B had been a cis woman, and even Misa, the one who wasn’t, had thought they were in the beginning.

“I won’t ever forgive you, though,” they said.

“I know.” He didn’t know if he could ever forgive _himself._

_“Look at you, this little chit who leaves a trail of nothing but mistakes. You think anyone will ever love you? Look at Karen and Amanda and Kelsey. They left for a reason. Even your own parents hate you. Your dad **left** because he couldn’t handle you. You think you can write? You’ve tried publishing one story, and even our shit high school newspaper rejected it. You think you can make your life worthwhile? What will you **ever** amount to?” He could see the pain and the panic in her eyes, and a small part of him asked why he was doing this, she was his **friend** , he cared for her but… she was B’s friend too. All she did was steal the attention of the love of his life, and she deserved what she got. So he continued ripping into every insecurity he knew she had, until she was breaking down, on the verge of tears, and ended it with what he would later learn was a far more literal nail in her coffin than he’d ever meant it to be._

**_“You’re just a waste of space.”_ **

L dug a thumbnail into his own palm to stop the memories, and willed himself to sleep.

-

Naomi was watching the television again. This time it was the news; a follow up story on the disappearance of three bodies from the morgue. She’d asked B about it, and they’d replied darkly that that day had been _blondy’s_ shift. Then the two of them had laughed together about the incompetence of B’s rival, and she’d forgotten about it. Still, it was an odd crime, and the police kept saying that only someone who knew their way around the morgue could have executed it so flawlessly.

-

L woke up alone, though the blankets on B’s side of the bed were ruffled. He stood, stretched, and pulled on his boxers, pack, jeans, and shirt. He crept out of the room. The upstairs hallway of the house that B shared with that listless woman, Naomi, was lined with closed doors. Only one was ajar, and L couldn’t help but think this was intentional, as he was drawn toward it.

He pushed it open further, and saw a desk, on it only a wired together cat skeleton, a jar half filled with fluid, and a decorative inkwell and feather pen. He edged the door open a little more, and saw B’s grinning face. He’d only seen that grin once before, and he would never forget it. Just after her funeral, as B floored the gas pedal, and he’d realized the B _meant_ to take them off the road. You don’t forget what it looks like when the person you love most in the world is so filled with hate for you that they try to kill you and themselves. And if he did forget, L had his scars and B’s burns to remind himself.

“I made you a birthday present,” they said, grinning even more. Oh yes, that was right. He was turning twenty nine today.

“What do you mean?” L asked. B motioned to a large, rectangular object covered by a tarp. L pulled off the tarp to reveal… a refrigerator?

“Open it!” B said, excited. L did as he was told.

“Oh Backup,” L said, shocked so far back in time that he used B’s childhood nickname, “What have you done?”

-

Naomi was awoken by a rasping, inhuman scream, and started out of bed. She leapt up in her nightgown, grabbed Raye’s shotgun off the wall, and ran to B’s study. The door was just ajar, and there were voices from inside. She barreled through, shotgun at the ready, and found B, their guest, and… something. It looked like a life-size doll, and screeched… but no, it wasn’t a doll. It was a person. A horrible, abominable mockery of what humanity should look like, but still a person, and Naomi could see the fear in its eyes. Her eyes.

Each body part was lovingly, carefully sutured to each other, and a line of sutures ran across the forehead as well. The body parts didn’t quite match, with slight variation in skin tones and some freckled while others weren’t. The… the girl was wrapped in a white dress, too fancy for the stains of bodily fluid decorating it. A trio of car batteries, wired together, sparked at her feet.

Naomi looked at the other two. On B’s face she saw triumph, wonder, and some other unexplainable emotion. On their guest’s, she saw _awe_.

-

It was her. It was her. It was _her_. Gone were her clear green eyes, and her pale blonde hair, and her pixie-like features, and her sweet, soft voice, but it was _her_ , and he could barely breathe.

“This is the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten,” L gasped, as the living dead girl tried and failed to make any sound approximating speech.

-

“I… I…” Naomi realized that the girl was trying to speak. She also realized that she’d never lowered her shotgun.

“It’s you…” the girl got out at last, her voice a painful rasp.

“It’s us,” said B, their face the kindest that Naomi had ever seen it.

“Oh B… Oh L… I love you both so much…” the girl began to cry. “…but you should have left me be.”

Then everything happened at once. The girl grabbed for the car batteries, B shouted “Angelika, no!” and grabbed for her hands, and there was a sizzling noise.

And Naomi and the nameless guest were staring at two smoking corpses.

**Author's Note:**

> http://nonbinarybeyondbirthday.tumblr.com/post/131850666927/taintedspooky-h-o-r-r-o-r-p-r-o-m-p-t-s-i prompt taken from here.  
> I always loved the idea of a sort of Mad Scientist!B, and what mad scientist is more archetypal than Victor Frankenstein.
> 
> http://nonbinarybeyondbirthday.tumblr.com/post/132260622537/what-they-did posted on tumblr here.


End file.
